Food, water, and energy insecurity, as well as economic and social inequality, form a “nexus” of issues that create an environment that breeds violent extremism, according to a senior US State Department official.

As a lone gunman’s deadly rampage at an Orlando nightclub in the early hours of June 12—the worst mass shooting in modern US history—dominated the presidential campaign rhetoric, former US officials advised the Obama administration to remain above the fray.

“I wouldn’t react to the political campaigns’ rhetoric,” said Frances Fragos Townsend, a former homeland security advisor to then-US President George W. Bush.

“If I was the White House now talking about Orlando, I would behave and speak as though the two political campaigns were not going on because I think it is really important for the administration, for the [FBI]…they have got real substantive, investigative, and policy work to do and they cannot allow themselves to get drawn into the nonsense that is this presidential campaign,” she added.

Townsend spoke in a press call hosted by the Atlantic Council on June 13. She was joined by Michael Vickers, who served as undersecretary of defense for...
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